Browsing the database

ThrustLab keeps a database of real motors, propellers and battery packs, and it is open: /motors, /propellers and /batteries need no account.

Each page is the same browser over a different kind of part — a filter rail down the left, a sortable table beside it, and a shortlist bar that appears once you tick something. Signed in, the same browser is at /dashboard/motors and its two siblings, beside the parts you entered yourself.

Finding a part

Search

Matches the part's name, so a model number or part of one narrows the list as you type.

What it does not do. It searches the name only. To narrow by a number — kv, weight, capacity — use the filters beside the table; a name that happens to contain "2207" is not the same question as "a 22 mm stator".

Filters

Each section of the rail narrows the list by one property: tick the makers you want, or type a smallest and a largest value.

About the counts. The number beside a value is how many parts in the whole database carry it, not how many are left after your other filters. That is deliberate: a rail whose numbers reshuffled on every tick is one you cannot aim at, and a filter you remove always brings its rows back.

Your filters are in the address. Everything you set is written into the page's URL, so the link in your address bar reproduces exactly this list for anybody you send it to.

Related: Units · Sort by · Curve pack

Curve pack

Shows the cell count of the battery pack used for this motor's published curves. For example, 6S means six cells. Up to four propeller pairings use the same pack.

A stand-in pack. One catalog pack stands for each cell count. The pack is chosen to load the motor enough to show it working. This cell count is not a manufacturer's recommendation or rating. Try any pack in the simulation panel on the motor's page or in the calculator.

The maker's range comes from the maker's own product page and appears in the Maker cells row. The curve pack stays within that range if a pack there loads the motor enough for its curves. Otherwise, it is chosen the usual way and may fall outside the range.

Filtering and blanks. Enter a smallest and largest cell count to narrow the list by this number, using whole cells. Both limits are included. A blank means the motor has no published curves, for example because its pole count is unknown or its curves have not been computed yet.

Sort by

Orders the list by one column. Clicking a column header does the same thing, and clicking it again reverses the order.

Parts with nothing to say. A part that does not state the value you sorted by goes to the end of the list rather than being dropped from it.

Units

Switches the page between imperial and metric.

It changes what you read, never what a link means. A filter you share carries its number in the database's own units, so the same link gives the same rows whichever setting the person opening it has.

Signed in. The dashboard uses your account's unit setting, so this control is not shown there — change it in your account settings and every page follows.

Shortlisting and simulating

Pick

Adds this part to a shortlist that follows you around the site, so you can gather candidates while you browse.

It holds ten per part type. The eleventh checkbox is disabled until you take one off. Ten is a product decision, not a technical limit: a side-by-side of eleven columns is not a comparison.

Where it lives. In this browser, so it works before you have an account. Once you have one, it follows you to your other browsers as well, and the two lists are merged rather than replaced — a device that has been offline can add to the list but never delete what another one added.

Simulate

Opens the calculator with this part already chosen, so you only have to fill in the rest of the powertrain.

Where it opens. Signed out, the calculator, which needs no account. Signed in on the dashboard, a new simulation in your default project.

Selected

The bar along the bottom of the table: what you have shortlisted, and the two things you can do with it.

Refine in the calculator opens a sweep over the parts you picked — the same powertrain solved once per part, with the answers side by side. It needs at least two parts, because one value is not a sweep.

Clear empties the shortlist for this part type only; motors, propellers and batteries are three separate lists.

The same bar appears on every part's own page, so a shortlist gathered across several pages is always one click from Compare.

See all

Back to the full table for this part type, with the shortlist kept. It appears on a part's own page; on the table itself there is nothing to go back to.

Moving between the public pages and your account

Open in dashboard

Opens the same list inside your account, keeping your filters, your search and your sort.

What changes there. A part's Simulate goes straight into a project instead of the calculator, and your account's unit setting applies.

It appears only when you are signed in — an invitation to a page that would send you to a login form is not an invitation.

Public link

The version of this list that anyone can open without an account, with your filters, your search and your sort intact.

Use it when you want to send somebody the exact list you are looking at.

Catalog and My components

Two lists of the same kind of part.

Catalog is the shared database — the same rows the public page shows.

My components is what you entered yourself: private to your account, and available in every simulation alongside the catalog. Adding, editing and deleting your own parts happens there.

Comparing parts side by side

/motors/compare, and the same page for propellers and batteries. It takes the parts on your shortlist and puts them on one set of axes. Nothing is solved when you open it: every curve was computed in advance, in one batch, by the Fast model — the same model your own runs use — so the page is a database read and it costs you no waiting.

The comparison lives entirely in the page's address, which is why you can send it to somebody.

Series

One chip per part, in the colour its line is drawn in. The colour comes from the part's position in the address, so the page looks the same to everybody who opens the link.

The checkbox hides that part's line on every plot at once. It is a way of reading the others, and it is deliberately not part of the link — a comparison you share should show what you were comparing, not which lines you had folded away. Packs have no curves at all, so their chips carry no checkbox.

The ✕ is the other thing. It takes the part out of the comparison and off your shortlist, and the page's address follows, so the link you send is the comparison you are looking at.

A part with no curves is still listed, greyed, and still has a column in the table below. Parts are precomputed in batches, and one whose datasheet is missing something the solver needs — an uncaptured pole count, most often — is planned and then withheld rather than published with a guessed number.

Pairing

A motor on its own has no thrust curve — it has one for each propeller it turns, on each battery. So every curve here comes from a pairing: a motor, a propeller and a pack that were solved together.

Best efficiency plots each part's own most efficient pairing. Read this when you are choosing the part.

A named pack — "On a 4S pack", "On a 6S pack" — plots every part on the same battery: for a motor, the pack it ran on; for a propeller, the pack its paired motor ran on. Read this when you already have a pack. A class that not every compared part has a pairing for is listed with how many do, and cannot be selected: three lines and a gap is not a comparison.

Which pack "nominal" means. One curated pack stands for each cell count: the lightest one of at least 1000 mAh. It is a stand-in, not a recommendation — to ask about your own pack, use Refine in the calculator.

X axis

Throttle is the control you set. RPM is what the propeller actually sees.

On a propeller comparison under Best efficiency, each line is on a different motor, so 70 % throttle is a different rotor speed in each one and the curves are not on one axis. Throttle is unavailable there; pick a shared pack class and it comes back.

What runs on these packs

A pack makes no thrust, so a battery comparison has no curves. This is the other half of the same precomputed batch, read from the pack's point of view: for each motor stator size, the most efficient motor and propeller the batch found on this pack's voltage class.

It is chosen per class, not per pack. Every 4S pack shows the same list, because the batch ran one nominal 4S pack to stand for all of them. Your pack's capacity and C-rating change the answer; to ask about those, use Refine in the calculator.

Units

Switches this page between imperial and metric and remembers the choice on this device. It changes what you read, never what the link means.

Signed in on the dashboard, your account's unit setting rules and this control is not shown.

Specifications

The datasheets, one column per part, grouped by what the numbers are.

The highlight marks the best value in a row, and only where "best" has a meaning: lightest, most maximum current, most capacity, most specific energy. Higher kv is not better — it is a different motor for a different propeller — and neither is more pitch or a bigger stator, so those rows have no highlight. When every part states the same value there is nothing to highlight either.

Share link

Copies this page's address. Whoever opens it sees the same parts in the same colours.

Refine in the calculator

Opens the calculator with these parts as a sweep — the same powertrain solved once per part — so you can change the battery, the throttle or the airspeed and get your own answer.

The curves on this page were computed on one nominal pack at eight throttle points. This is how you ask about yours. It needs at least two parts.

Save this comparison

Creates an account and brings this shortlist with it, so it is waiting for you on your other browsers.

You do not need an account to compare, or to share a comparison — the link works for anybody. This is shown only when you are signed out.

A part's own page

/motors/t-motor-f80-pro, and one like it for every part in the database. Top to bottom: what the part is, what the precomputed batch found it does, a simulation you can run without leaving the page, and the parts it belongs among.

Nothing on the page is solved when you open it. Every curve came from one batch, computed by the Fast model — the same model your own runs use — and published together, which is why the page is instant and why it carries the date it was computed on.

Specifications

The part's datasheet, grouped the way a datasheet is read.

Your units. Every number is converted to your unit setting. The database stores each value in its own unit; nothing is re-typed.

Rows marked calc. Those are arithmetic on the stated figures rather than stated figures themselves. A pack states its cells, its capacity and its C-rating; its voltage, its energy, its specific energy and its continuous current are all worked out from those three at 3.7 V per cell — the nominal voltage every pack on the market is labelled with, and not a measurement of yours.

A dash means the manufacturer did not publish that number. It does not mean zero, and the page will not guess it.

Performance

Thrust, power, current, efficiency and grams per watt, for each powertrain the batch precomputed with this part in it.

Against what. A motor page plots against throttle, which is the control you set. A propeller page plots against rotor speed, because the same throttle is a different speed on every motor and the curves would not be on one axis.

Where the numbers come from. The batch runs the same solver your own simulations do, on one nominal pack per voltage class, at eight throttle points. To ask about your pack, your throttle or your airspeed, use the panel beside the specifications — or the calculator, which takes every input this page fixes.

A part with nothing here was either not computed yet, or was computed and withheld: a pairing that exceeded the motor's rated current, spun the propeller past its printed maximum, or ran from a datasheet with a pole count nobody captured is planned and then not published, rather than published with a guess in it.

Pairings

A part on its own has no thrust curve — it has one for each powertrain it is in. Each chip is one of those.

On a motor page the chip names the propeller that was turned; on a propeller page, the motor that turned it. The cell count beside it is the pack the batch used.

The checkbox folds that line away on every plot at once, so you can read the others. There is no ✕ here, unlike the comparison page: these are what the batch computed for this part, not a list you assembled.

Download CSV

The selected pairing's eight points as a file: throttle, rotor speed, thrust, power, current, efficiency and grams per watt.

In the database's own units — newtons and watts — whatever this page is displaying. A file whose units depended on a toggle the downloader had set is a file nobody can compare with anybody else's.

It needs an account, which is free.

Other winds

A motor is sold in winds: the same can and stator wound for a different kv. Each wind is its own row in the database, so this is how you read across to the one you actually want.

When it is not there. The families are worked out from the makers' own naming, and some makers do not name consistently enough to be sure. Where the rule cannot be trusted for a brand, no switcher is shown for any of that brand's motors — a sibling that might not be one is worse than no list.

Related

Three short lists at the foot of the page.

Same maker — the rest of this maker's parts of this type. On a motor page it is the other winds instead, which is the more useful answer.

Paired with — the parts this one was computed alongside in the batch.

Same class — a motor's stator size, a propeller's diameter, a pack's cell count and rough capacity. Capacity is part of a pack's class on purpose: a 4S 450 mAh and a 4S 6000 mAh are not alternatives to each other. See all opens the browser with that class already filtered.

Add to compare

Puts this part on the shortlist that follows you around the site — the same one the browsers' checkboxes fill. Once there are two, Compare opens them on one set of axes.

Simulating from the page

The panel beside the specifications runs this part against two others and shows you the full result without leaving the page. It is the same solver the rest of ThrustLab uses; what it is not is a second calculator.

Change

The panel starts with the most efficient combination the batch found for this part, and Change swaps one of the other two for anything in the database.

The part whose page you are on cannot be changed here. That is what makes this the page's simulation rather than the calculator with fewer inputs.

Throttle

What the stick is set to, as a percentage.

What is fixed. Sea-level standard air, stationary. The pack's charge and the rotor count are the rows below. To change anything else — airspeed, altitude, temperature, more than four rotors — use Open in the calculator, which carries these parts across.

Charge

How full the pack is at the start of the run, as a state-of-charge percent. A fuller pack holds a higher voltage, so the motor turns faster at the same throttle; a half-flown pack gives the rpm and thrust you would see late in a flight. The calculator's Charge level input takes the same number, and a run re-opened there keeps it.

Rotors

How many of this motor and propeller share the pack, all at the same throttle. One is the datasheet's frame. Four is a quad: the pack sees four times the current, sags further, and the System Total tab of the result reports the summed thrust, current and flight time — the numbers you compare to the aircraft's weight. Each rotor also gets its own tab.

Four is the ceiling on this panel, because it is the free plan's rotor limit and the anonymous run is a free run. The calculator takes more rotors, mixed rotor groups and coaxial stacks.

Run

Solves this powertrain and shows the full result on the page.

Signed out it needs no account, runs in about a second, and the answer gets a link you can share. If the free solver is busy, or you have run a lot of them in a minute, the panel says so and how long to wait — it never fails silently.

Signed in the run is saved into a project and goes through your account's queue, so it may wait behind runs you already started. You can cancel it while it waits.

The Fast model runs without limit on every plan, including no plan at all.

Saves to

Which project a signed-in run is filed in.

It starts where your last run went, not at a default project you may have stopped using — and it says so before you press Run, so a run never turns up somewhere you have to go looking for it. Change it here to file this one elsewhere.

Signed out there is no project at all: the run gets a shareable link instead, and Save this result files it into a new account afterwards.

Result actions

Open result is the run on its own page, at a link anybody can open. Copy link copies that address. Open in the calculator reopens the exact inputs where you can change any of them. Save this result creates an account and keeps the run in it.

You do not need an account to run a simulation or to share one — only to keep it.

This visit

The runs you have made from this page, newest first, up to five. Click one to read it again.

It is held in this tab only. Leaving the page loses the strip — though each run keeps its own link, and anonymous runs are kept for thirty days.

The two summary pages

Two pages read across the database rather than down one part: /motors/thrust-data and /propellers/uiuc-database. Each is a single table of the parts that have a published page, with the numbers the precomputed batch found for them.

They are summaries, not browsers. There are no filters and no shortlist here — those are on /motors and its siblings. What these give you is one screen you can read across.

Motor thrust data

Every motor with a published page, ordered by the thrust it reached.

A row is a powertrain, not a motor. Each motor is shown on the propeller and pack the batch found suited it best, so the thrust, the power and the efficiency across one row all belong together. Swap the propeller and every number changes.

"At 100%" is the top of the throttle sweep the batch ran. Best η is the highest system efficiency anywhere on that sweep, and it names the throttle it was reached at — an efficiency without its operating point is not a figure you can compare. g/W at best η is the thrust per watt at that same point, not the best g/W on the curve; grams per watt keeps rising as throttle falls, so the two are different points.

Open a motor to read its other pairings, or to run it against parts of your own.

UIUC propeller database

Every propeller with a published page, by diameter and then pitch.

The UIUC Propeller Data Site is the measured wind-tunnel reference ThrustLab's propeller model is checked against. The validation report sets out how; this page quotes nothing from it.

A row is a powertrain, exactly as on the motor page: each propeller is shown on the motor and pack the batch paired with it. The columns read the same way — thrust and power at the top of the throttle sweep, best efficiency with the throttle it was reached at, and grams per watt at that same point.

Open a propeller to read its curves against rotor speed, where a propeller is actually comparable across motors.